England would only get its mojo back

in the 1960s with the Beatles

R ! chard

it isn’t easy for me to leave Bach behindwhenever I start listening to him, I could ride his musical train forever

but the middle of the 18th Century did, put him aside, for about a hundred years, until Mendelssohn rediscovered him

Bach’s Cello Suiteswere themselves only reinstated in the 1930s by Pablo Casals,the Classical 18th Century had considered Bach too fussy, his pieces, they thought, were technical exercises rather than actual entertainments, form was overtaking, for them, function

there’s a wonderful book about all this,“The Cello Suites“, written by Eric Siblin, a Canadian journalist, which is not only amazingly informed and probing, but also beautifully written, it holds a place of honour on my bookshelf, along with other inspired, and inspiring, texts

not only was Bach set asunder, dismissed,during the Classical Era, but all of the formative music also he had written, for cello, violin, keyboard, in other words,the entire curriculum

which, since Bach’s reinstatement, has become,paradoxically, the very foundation for learning these instruments

imagine playing a tune with the right hand, then a few notes later, picking it up in the left hand while the right hand keeps on going, imagine what that does to your fingers, never mind to your mind, that’s what his Two-PartInventionsare all about, fifteen of them, eight in major keys, seven inminor, consider the technical difficulties, intricacies, imposed both compositionally and upon the harried performer

then Bach follows through with his Three-Part Inventions to top it all off, for the keyboard at least, and only for the moment – there’ll still be his transcendental “GoldbergVariations” among other incandescent masterpieces – wherein one juggles three tunes at a time, and all of them in the same assortment of fifteen contrasting, foundational, keys, the “Inventions“ – if you can do that, you’re on your way, one would think, to knowing entirely what you’re doing

listen to Haydn’s First Cello Concerto,note the bravura inherent in the composition, this is not Bach’s meditative music, the very Romantic Period is, through Classical reserve, expressing already its imminence, individual prowess is taking over from community, which is to say religious, affiliation, the same way the Renaissance artists, Duccio, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Uccello had stood out, incidentally,from their brethren in the standard communal art schools dedicated to decorating the ever burgeoning churches sprouting out in the stillfervent European environment

musical, though unaristocratic, talents, this time, were beginning, within a German context, to flex their decidedly not unimpressive muscles, and gaining some significant purchase

and who wouldn’t when a Cello Concerto would’ve sounded like this, listen

but listen to how Haydn makes it glisten, explicitly, with articulations and filigree that render it utterly irresistible

the adagio is usually the moment thatremains immutable, if the composeris doing hir stuff, it’s the one you walk home singing, the faster movements,however histrionic, are nearly a dime a dozen, though ever nevertheless often dazzling

this adagio is utterly Romantic, thoughI’m sure Haydn didn’t know what he was doing, cause despite their pushagainst the democratic surge, even monarchists, princes, dukes, dutiful composers, were finding, and voicing, their personal, and individual, which is to say, theirdemocratic, opinions, however aristocratic their pedigree

artists had done a similar thing when their personalities began to single themselves out as especially gifted when the Renaissance was happening, it was now music’s hour, individual voices were staking their claim, Haydn’s manifestly superior based on talent and, after widespread economic affluence, audience appeal, Haydn’s commercial boots were made for walking, and he filled them bothmagnificently and incontrovertibly

the poco adagio; cantabile is notcourtly music, it reaches for notmerely elegance, but the heart,we’ve entered another transformational generation, something like the revolution that triggered change in the cultural upheaval of the1960s

our first step then was the Beatles, theirs was Haydn, or rather ElvisPresley shoring up the Beatles, Beethoven was more aptly John,Paul, George and Ringo

but watch the rapture on the players’ faces, Francis ll would’ve been appalled, much like parents in my generation facing the pill, drugs, unorthodox sexual couplings, and, of course, raucous and unruly rock music

today, under the spell of the Romantic Period, and encouragedby that very Sexual Revolution, theCalidore String Quartet’sElysium, their evident bliss, emotionally manifest, and utterly arresting, sells tickets, for better or, hopefully not, for worse

but you call the shots, to decorum or not to decorum, that is the question

though I had the good fortune to learn to read and write music as a boy, play music, learn about Bach, Brahms and Beethoven, it didn’t take anyone else much more thantheir enthusiasm to see what the Beatleswere similarly doing, the Rolling Stones, the Supremes, they were not only singing, but making history, shaping it, and us, we followed the questions they rose, their responses, the effects upon ourselvesfor nothing is considered until it’s mentioned, spoken, made clear, and theywere those prophets

the same goes for art, we see as we seecause Monet, Picasso, Warhol showed us how to see, what to look at

several years ago, a friend of mine
invited me to a concert, Sir Edward
Elgar‘s “The Dream of Gerontius“,
to my mind, a double mountain to
cross, both English and ceremonial,
this is not music you can dance to,
nor even dream on, but music that
demands your allegiance, as well
as your attention

to my mind English music, nearly
an oxymoron, remained stagnant
from Purcell, 1659 to 1695, to the
Beatles, 1960 to 1970, with very
few exceptions, never managing,
mostly, to hold, even, a tune

ceremonial music suffered much
from its rigid partisan bent,
whether political or religious, try
singing “La Marseillaise“ or“The Stars and Stripes“ if you’re
not of those nations, you are
instantly sidelined, a mere
spectator, try “How Great Thou
Art“ at a party, however
inspirational

but the ticket was free, my friend
couldn’t think of anyone else she
could invite who’d enjoy the show,
she’d received the tickets in a
bundle

Gerontius, an old man – you’ll note
the Greek root, geron, as in
“gerontology” – is dying, fears the
other side, friends comfort him and,
in particular, a priest sends him on
his way, that’s act one

act two, he’s on the other side,
wherein the dream of being on the
other side, should he still be alive,
or the actuality of being on the
other side, confront him, have I
died, he wonders

I could tell you something about
that

an angel appears to lead him to,
the programme boasted, no less
than God eventually, in a burst,
for the occasion, of musical
pyrotechnics

well, I wondered, let’s see what
they’re going to do with that

it was unforgettable, though my
friend was somewhat more
equivocal, perhaps not as intent,
quite yet, as I was, about meeting
her divine

in search of something lately to
commemorate the several recent
worldwide atrocities, I quickly
settled on the only work I could
think of, apart from anything,
of course, by Bruckner, to mourn
appropriately

though not an oratorio, according
to the composer’s strict intentions,Elgar‘s “The Dream of Gerontius“, a
concert piece, is played here in a
church, an Anglican, indeed,
cathedral, despite the flagrantly
Catholic story being told, Elgar had
converted to Catholicism, the piece
transcends, however, religions

an oratorio, incidentally – not to be
confused with Ontario, the Canadian
province – is an opera conceived
without sets or costumes, usually
associated with significant religious
occasions

that sounds a lot like Beethoven, I
thought, throw in extrapolations of
symphonic proportions and that
sounds a lot like Beethoven too,
saying, this is not just pretty, people,
it’s potentially momentous, listen

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band“ then put several compositions
together, without breaks, to give us
the first concept album, an
uninterrupted flow of various musical
ideas held together by an, however
inexplicit, theme

in 1826, it had been Beethoven’s 14th,
where all this started out, no one had
ever done this sort of thing before,
confounded so intimately contrasting
musical forms, but he’d got it from
the Christian Mass

but I opted for a change, the effect of, maybe,
springtime, chose Patti, who’d awakened by
her very name a world of magical memories
for me, even inspiring me to find finally a
long lost friend, an ardent fan, then, of Patti

the ones with descriptive titles, the “Moonlight”, the“Pastorale“,“The Hunt“, for instance, were mostly so
labeled by his publisher for ease of identification in
the growing market place, a more affluent merchant
class eager to take on the refinements of the nobles,
see such an instance of social mobility, however
lampooned, updated and upended, in again the
engaging and not at all unperceptive “The Beverly
Hillbillies“

this means that the suggestive names we’ve come
to associate with his sonatas, “Moonlight”,“Pastorale“,“The Hunt“, were never conceived as such by
Beethoven, his compositions were ever purely musical
inventions, or more accurately inspirations, prophetic
pronouncements of a much more oracular order,
like Prometheus Beethoven was delivering nothing
short of fire

that titles were given to music, rather than the more
clinical and mnemonically difficult numbers, which
is to say, not easy to remember, isn’t very different
from the evolution of popular music in the early
1960′s

the Beatles, you’ll remember, had cuts on albums
that had nothing more than their group name in
the titles, or the title of one of the album’s cuts,
“Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” came
along to change all that, we saw the birth of the
concept album, where the whole extended affair
becomes a musical metaphysics, this is no
different from the move from the music of Mozart
to that of the more expansive Beethoven, music
is no longer a ditty but an extended technical
and philosophical text, listen to Pink Floyd take
on this mantle superbly in the Seventies, the only
other body since ever to effectively challenge
Beethoven in that especially rarefied field, with
the probable exception of the sublimely expressiveSchubert perhaps, who died much too young for us
to tell, for him to have decisively dialectically proven
himself beside these erudite peers, all having,
however, found ways to have us touch beyond the
sky, the very infinite, and into the no less infinite
confines of our more private and secret selves

what they state is that creation itself, absent any
other meaning, remains potent, perhaps even
ultimately redemptive

creation as a bold and noble response to eternity,
art as affirmation

you’ll note here that the structure of this sonata
is entirely Classical, unity of tone, unity of pace,
and the eventual return of the initial melody,
essential Classical components, what has
changed is the personal bravura of the composer,
Beethoven is not playing for the aristocratic court,
but for a wider, an infinite, audience, he is
pronouncing his and, by extension, our own place
and validity in the universe, by our ability as humans
to create, to respond creatively, and even sublimely,
out of only our otherwise flailing and indeterminate
existence

it is the Romantic response to the waning belief
in God, and incidentally a profound spur to,
argument for, our present notion of inalienable
individual rights

the personal soul has taken over from the earlier
unchallenged deity, the wavering concept of God
has had a seismic fall, and all the king’s horses
and all the king’s men will never be able to put it
together undiminished again